by JERi ChADwEll-SiNglEY
Sol man
So some games, some ritual. Who is the event for? Is it kid-friendly?
PHOTO/JERI CHADWELL-SINGLEY
Scott Reimers is co-owner of Reno Magick and a priest of the Temple of Growth Advancement, an interfaith temple serving the Reno area. Every year, Reno Magick sponsors a summer solstice celebration at Washoe Lake. This year’s event is from June 23-25.
How long have you been having solstice festivities at the lake? I think eight years now.
What kind of activities do you have planned for this weekend? Right now the Greek and Norse temples are the most active. So, we actually have a guest from the Bay Area. Yeshe Rabbit is a high priestess at the Come As You Are Coven. And she’s going to be coming into town, and we’re going to be doing a pretty big Greek-Aphrodite thing. And then we have a cycle-of-theyear festival dynamic. It’s very common for pagans to celebrate different high holidays. And this high holiday, the celebration is of the dynamic of the light reaching it’s peak, and then we’re headed into the dark times—a.k.a. winter. … So we actually have a celebration. We basically have competitions, and the winners of those competitions are the bright king and the dark king. We do this game where the bright king’s side and the dark king’s side, they battle with fake weapons, and we have
people who are healers. They resurrect people who’ve been killed with the fake weapons. And this game goes on for a while until we decide it’s time, and then the light side stops resurrecting their people until, finally, the dark king is victorious. It’s a game. It’s a battle, a competition—some fun.
So a bit like role playing, but the goal is to celebrate the solstice, the time of year when we have the most light? Yes. It’s common myth that you have a king that’s born at the winter solstice, that comes into his power … at the summer solstice. And at the summer solstice, the dark king comes in and takes over and reaches the peak of his power at the winter solstice. So we’re just kind of playing that out in a game.
It is a family-friendly thing. If you’d be uncomfortable camping with other people, you should probably just come out during the day. Day [visits are] fine. Camping itself is definitely fine—so anybody who’d like to, camp.
How should people go about getting involved or learning more? Probably our Facebook is going to be the best bet. It would be facebook.com/ RenoMagick/, and we’ve got stuff posted there. … Being involved—the Greek temple and the Norse temple of people wanted to volunteer and help out. And that’s definitely there. But, realistically, it’s just showing up. This is one of those events where, you know, it’s less about the prep and more about us having a good time and enjoying each other while we’re there.
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Cool. So, for people who are looking to learn more about pagan faiths and the temple here, how would you recommend they get involved? Is the event a good introduction? Or a temple visit first? Pagan is a very big, broad term. We’re a couple of different flavors of a couple of very local versions of pagan. So, I’d probably say taste it all. Find out what you like. Find out what works for you. … This is a good event to come and try and check out—very low prerequisites. Ω
by BRUCE VAN DYKE
Comey and Trump OK, so Comey just testified, and something tells me I’m not the only one that is hoping like hell that Mr. Comey can at least partially redeem himself for his crummy October 2016. One way he can do that very nicely would be by delivering a ’nad-flattening kick to the nutsack of one President Dum Dum. And, yes, if Big Jim comes up a little lame and fails to cough up any really good flame-throwing, eyebrow-singing verbal napalm on Twitler, it’ll be—a disappointment. A big disappointment. Of course it will. We’re all pulling for Comey to dig down deep and pull out some tip top gunk of a kind that will make Trump go home and tweet, “I’m hosed.” And this gunk can’t just be gunky, but IRREFUTABLE. Granted, that’s a very high bar of expectation, for sure, but, hey, a guy can dream, right? (Actually, an even better tweet would be,
“i’m fuckd”—definitely sic—which would be tweeted out not just impulsively, but downight rashly, before Reince and/or Kellyanne got a chance to proof it, and it remained online for only 12 minutes, but that was long enough to circle the globe 17 times.) I think the boy has some game. Comey, that is. I think he’s gonna bring some goods. He does indeed seem to be a bit of a grandstander, and, in this instance, that’s cool. That’s very cool. You don’t want a guy up there who’s gonna shrivel in the heat, ’cuz it’ll be plenty hot there in the glare of that hearing. So, yeah, grandstand away, dude. Shit, bring some charts and stuff. You know what Dum Dum’s pissed about. The numbers. The ratings. He knows Comey is gonna score big time. Huge Neilsens. And for a boring old federal hearing? Yagotta befuggin kiddinme! Trump’s
hating him. Hating him! Big numbers, all demos, the bastard. “The bastard! Where’s my phone? Where is it? Goddammit, Jared, I need my phone! Jared!!! Now!” You think the Chinese aren’t enjoying the vision of Trump lighting himself on fire on a weekly basis while simultaneously stepping on his tadger (not an easy trick to master). You think the Chinese don’t stand in silent awe as Twitler effortlessly pisses off and frustrates best buds like Germany and the U.K.? You think the Chinese aren’t absolutely drooling over the positively gaping opportunities suddenly made available by America’s quick right turn into the freaking Stone Age? The plot is quickening and thickening, and one wonders if it gets sickening with the dickening. But, by now, it just doesn’t seem all that fake. Ω
06.08.17
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